The Front Page: grant_essie001B

Essie Evans is a single mother in rural south Georgia with a profoundly disabled son Cornelius, now 16. Diagnosed with mitochondrial encephalomyopathy , he can't speak, walk, move or care for himself. She struggles to fore for him in her modest mobile home, yet steadfastly refuses to place him in a nursing home. "He needs to be with people who love him," he said. "He's in there, I know it," Essie says of her son.